SABA'A AL THABIT, Egypt—Self-styled strongman Al Sayed al Essawy had an idea for lifting his country out of its post-revolution economic funk: Fight a lion.

Which is why on Saturday Mr. Al Essawy stepped into a steel cage with a 660-pound lion here in the middle of a wheat field in this farming hamlet. He glared at the lion and bared his teeth. He carried a "shield" made out of an old satellite dish.

Addressing the crowd of a few hundred Egyptians bused in for the spectacle, Mr. Al Essawy roared: "Who is the lion?"

Self-styled Egyptian strongman Sayed El Essawy stepped into a cage to fight a lion in a no-holds-barred death match. He said it was to boost tourism in Egypt. WSJ's David Botti reports.

"You are the lion!" a couple dozen shouted back.

The lion itself looked bored. One man in the crowd claimed it had just been fed a whole donkey and was therefore sleepy.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Mr. Al Essawy had wanted to fight the lion in the shadow of the Great Pyramids. His idea was to send a message to the world that "in Egypt you can see events that you can't see anywhere else." February's violent revolution here has taken a big bite out of tourism, which employs some 10% of all Egyptians.

The fight drew condemnation from animal-rights activists and tourism officials. Egypt's tourism minister, Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, vowed this month to "personally" prevent the "barbaric" act from taking place by demanding that the ministry of interior intervene to stop the fight.

For Mr. Al Essawy, the official reaction only reflects the government's unsophisticated sense of how to market itself. Mr. Al Essawy insisted that his intent was never to kill the lion, only to force it into "surrender."

"There are three scenarios," said Mr. Al Essawy before the showdown. "Either the lion will surrender, withdraw or faint."

Public criticism and lack of government support, he said, are the only reasons he didn't stage his cage match near the famous Giza pyramids, instead holding it in the secret location in a village wheat field. Egypt's tourism ministry "has problems," he said. "They are still not able to have a dialogue with the youth and their ideas."

Other Egyptian tourism-boosting efforts may involve fewer lions, but feel no less odd. Shortly after former President Hosni Mubarak abdicated in February, one private group organized a march to the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square. Message: Egypt is safe for tourists. It seemed lost on organizers that "marches" were the primary reason tourists left in the first place. But few events match the showmanship of Mr. Al Essawy. He cites American professional wrestling as inspiration, particularly the World Wrestling Entertainment character "The Undertaker."

He brought to the lion fight a tough-guy pedigree. Mr. Al Essawy has pulled trucks attached to his back with hooks in his skin. He has hanged himself by the neck without dying. He has chewed glass.

To pull off his latest feat, Mr. Al Essawy bought a 6-year-old lion for 25,000 Egyptian pounds, or about $4,250, five months ago from someone he declined to identify. He paid to build a 700-square-foot steel cage in the middle of a wheat field here, in the verdant Nile River Delta. He hired buses to transport hundreds of spectators from the city of Mansoura, about an hour away.

On Saturday Mr. Al Essawy stepped into the cage, which was painted like an Egyptian flag, sporting a ponytail, a tank top scrawled with a pro-Palestinian slogan and the traditional Palestinian headdress, a kafiya, wrapped around his neck.

Despite vows he would be unarmed, Mr. Al Essawy brought with him a double-pronged spear, the satellite-dish "shield' spiked with nails, a machete on his belt and a dagger strapped to his ankle. As Mr. Al Essawy strutted around the cage, spectators gasped. Cameras clicked furiously.

The lion, which Mr. Al Essawy refused to give a name—he didn't want to "grow attached," he said—lazed in a prone position, gazing at the intruder even as Mr. Al Essawy thrust his spear toward its face. Mr. Al Essawy refused to attack first, he said, lest the Western press portray Islam as a violent religion.

After 20 minutes of watching the swaggering and speech-making, the lion briefly roused itself for a short roar when Mr. Al Essawy thrust his spear a little too close. But when Mr. Al Essawy hardened his jaw and grinned aggressively, the lion sat down, apparently unmoved even when Mr. Al Essawy called it a coward.

That was enough for Mr. Al Essawy to declare victory. He emerged from the cage, and friends and relatives lifted him onto their shoulders.

The generally celebratory crowd harbored a few skeptics. A local man from a nearby village who said he was paid to help build the cage, Walid Al Bahair, alleged the lion's handlers had starved the beast for three days leading up to the fight, then treated it to the feast of entire donkey just hours before the fight. "They're trying to take advantage of us," he said.

Mr. Al Essawy confirmed the lion had been starved for three days in advance of the fight, but denied feeding it beforehand.

Others complained that the event amounted to defamation of the Egyptian public, who might now be seen as vain publicity-seekers or, worse, abusers of animal rights. "The Egyptian people are better than this," said Ibrahim Al Howeidi, 55, a local farmer.

Discussing his stunt the next day, Mr. Al Essawy insisted he had cowed the lion into a sort of gentleman's victory—one that repudiated the criticism from Egypt's animal rights and tourist communities.

Having survived, Mr. Al Essawy is preparing to up the ante. In one month's time, he plans to fight two lions at once. Or perhaps a gorilla, he said. Or maybe a shark.

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